


I'm not Wilfred Owen

by westolethelight (Llama)



Category: The Libertines
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:04:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23355118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama/pseuds/westolethelight
Summary: Peter and Carl grew up less than ten miles apart, but to meet each other they had to go to war.
Relationships: Carl Barat/Pete Doherty
Comments: 3
Kudos: 51
Collections: Peter and Carl fics to lift our spirits during self-isolation





	I'm not Wilfred Owen

**Author's Note:**

> This is a WWII AU, and will contain some gory descriptions and depictions of soldiers suffering in horrific conditions. And yes, I know Wilfred Owen is WWI, just go with it for now!
> 
> Some excerpts from this story were posted on Tumblr a while back, but it has been revised. Please note the rating will go up to Explicit before very long.

It was the first time Peter had been away from home.

He'd spent yesterday heading down to London on a train, all the way from his little Yorkshire village, and now they were headed to some sort of training camp. From there he expected they'd go to the coast to sail off to-- well, who knew where?

He looked up and down the station platform. There were a few groups of young men in uniform hanging around piled up trunks and boxes that made his shabby suitcase look tiny, but they all seemed to know each other, and none of them looked in his direction.

That was okay, he could go and enjoy a smoke in peace. Calm his nerves. He strolled as casually as he could manage down to the less busy end of the platform, where only one smallish group of men lurked, but he'd barely made it a few paces before he realised that had been a mistake.

The group of soldiers down this end were jeering, jostling each other, while a tall, supercilious-looking man with a wispy moustache tossed something up and down in his hand.

"Come on then, gyppo," he sneered. "Tell us who you stole this from."

The dark-haired boy in the centre of the ruckus lunged for him, but two burly men held him back. He struggled wildly, landing a few kicks on them, and from the state of their uniforms it looked like they hadn't been the first. 

A suitcase even smaller and shabbier than Peter's lay open on the ground, its meagre contents scattered. 

"I'm not a gyppo!" the boy yelled. "Give it back!"

He was missing his uniform cap, making him look younger than he could possibly be; even if he'd lied about his age like Peter, they wouldn't have let him enlist if he couldn't convince them he was old enough.

Or maybe they'd seen him fight, Peter thought. Before he could take a step forward to interrupt, the boy's elbow jabbed into the stomach of one of his captors, and he took advantage of the moment to twist free of the other man's arm. A kick, a punch, a second punch, and both of them were on the floor. 

Even the supercilious man took a step back in surprise.

The boy stomped over to him and grabbed whatever it was – something that glinted in the early morning sun – from his hand. The rest of the group muttered and stepped back, starting to disperse. Some held up their hands as they backed off, as if to ward off the scruffy little demon that had felled their friends.

"What are you looking at?" The boy demanded, scowling at Peter. "You want some too?" 

He raised his fists, and Peter could see the swelling around his eye now. There were bruises, some fresh, and what looked like some starting to fade on the side of his face.

"Hey," Peter said, holding up his hands in surrender. "I just thought you might like a cigarette. It looks like yours might be a bit the worse for wear." 

He nodded at the packet lying trampled near the suitcase. It didn't look like it had been very full, but Peter thought it might be a bigger loss to this boy than most.

The boy picked the packet up anyway, muttering something under his breath. He shoved it in his pocket and shuffled over to Peter.

"Sorry," he mumbled, taking the cigarette Peter held out. "Got a light?"

Peter lit it for him, wondering at the sudden change from blazing hostility to this sheepish, awkward, almost polite demeanour.

"Get into a lot of fights, do you?" Peter asked, keeping his voice light and casual. 

"One or two." The boy grinned, transforming his sulky face into something quite different. 

Peter had never wanted to use the word 'beautiful' about a boy before, but it was the only one that fitted. No wonder he got into fights.

"But I always win."

"I bet you do." Peter grinned back, strangely charmed. He jammed his cigarette in the corner of his mouth and held out his hand. "Peter. Peter Doherty."

The boy took a long drag off the cigarette, stared at Peter's hand as if nobody had ever offered him one before, and slowly reached out.

"Carl," he said, hand surprisingly warm against Peter's palm as they shook. "Carl Barât."

Before they were halfway to the training camp, Peter knew that Carl had no family, that the little silver cross he'd been accused of stealing was his most precious possession (given to him by some nuns, of all things), that he could practically recite the Bible forwards and backwards, and that he had grown up in Bradford.

"Bradford," Peter marvelled, not for the first time. It was all of 8 or 9 miles at most from where Peter had spent his whole life so far. It might have been geographically close, but he suspected it had been a very different environment than Peter was used to. "I can't believe it."

"So you keep saying." Carl pulled the window down and stuck his face out into the breeze. "I'm getting bored of hearing it. Let's talk about you."

"I'm not very interesting," Peter said. Carl was going to work that out for himself soon enough, and that made his heart sink a little, because Carl was mysterious and fascinating, maybe a little dangerous, and Peter wanted to know _everything_ about his life. "Oh! I'm going to be a dad in a couple of months. That's kind of exciting."

Downright terrrifying was more like it. Though Peter felt quite mature telling Carl about it. Everyone in the village knew practically before he did, there hadn't been anyone left for him to tell once Florence's mum had blabbed about it.

Carl pulled his head back in at that. "You married then?" he asked, and there was something odd, or surprised about the way he said it that Peter couldn't quite put his finger on. Or maybe it was just because Peter was rather young to have a wife, let alone a baby on the way.

"'Course," he said. "Three months tomorrow."

Carl tilted his head to one side, no doubt doing some quick maths. "Ah," he said knowingly. "Bad luck."

Peter shrugged. It had all happened so fast he still didn't really know how he felt about it, but it had been out of his hands. And Florence deserved everything he could give her and the baby, if only for being the only girl who'd ever given him the time of day.

He showed Carl the photograph he kept in his pocket, and Carl whistled appreciatively, though there was something a bit off about it, like he was just reacting as expected. Peter wasn't sure why, but he found that surprising coming from Carl.

Of course, Carl had no family, and Peter, if anything, had an embarrasingly generous amount of it. He probably shouldn't have talked about any of it.

"She's beautiful," Carl said, and he seemed to mean it. 

Peter smiled broadly, relieved. Everything was okay after all. 

"I wonder if we were on the same train down to London," Peter said. "Did you come down yesterday?"

Carl shook his head. "Few days ago." He gnawed on a fingernail for a moment, then spat something out on the floor. "Had to wait for this train, so they gave me a haircut and stuff." He rubbed at the back of his head, where it was shortest.

"Right," Peter said, oddly disappointed. 

Carl leaned forward conspiratorially. "I nicked the ciggies off one of the officers," he said, with a sly grin. 

Peter laughed. "I nicked mine off my dad," he said, and for no real reason other than it seemed the right thing to do, he grabbed Carl's hand and squeezed it, just for a moment. 

"Two of a kind," Carl said, and deftly plucked the packet and the lighter out of Peter's top pocket. He lit one for himself, then offered one to Peter with a raised eyebrow.

Cheeky bastard.

"Two of a kind," Peter agreed, grinning widely, and took it.


End file.
